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Arch-vile
of Doom II]] Arch-viles are emaciated-looking, yellowish-skinned humanoid figures with a grotesque appearance, including stigmata. They also have no flesh around their abdomens, revealing some of their ribcage and spinal column. The Arch-viles first make their appearance in Doom II's Map 11. Combat characteristics Upon spotting the player, the Arch-vile emits a high-pitched sound similar to that of an Arachnotron. When killed, it utters an anguished cry as its body seems to fall apart - his midsection and left leg broken in half, right hand disintegrated into a bloody stump -, collapsing in on itself into a bloody heap. These monsters can take a considerably high amount of damage (700 hit points, the fourth highest in the game), and their attack consists of a unique ability to immolate their enemies in flames by raising their arms up, summoning fire upon the targeted foe, regardless of range (though they will not use their attack from more than 1024 map units away unless hurt). They then hunch over and clasp their hands together, causing the fire to erupt, usually send the enemy flying into the air, while causing up to 90 points in damage. This attack will always hit the enemy as long as there is a line of sight between the arch-vile and the target, and can be avoided by getting out of the arch-vile's line of sight, which is usually relatively easy since it takes the arch-vile about three full seconds to do one attack, from when it first calls the fire to when it actually sends out the blast. The blast occurs near the end of the spell. The demon will continue to finish its spell even after the blast however it is safe to come out of cover at this time. If the doom guy moves out of the sight of arch-vile and comes back at the moment of the blast, he will get hurt. In fact the only time the doom guy needs cover is at the moment of blast. This can be useful in speed-running. The arch-vile has the power to resurrect other, lower-level monsters that they come across. They can resurrect all monsters that leave corpses except cyberdemons, spiderdemons, Commander Keens, and other arch-viles. They also cannot resurrect corpses that were placed on map by the level designer. This resurrecting power makes them top priority to kill in battle, to stop them from reviving defeated monsters and forcing the player to spend extra ammunition. However, the player does get credit for killing resurrected monsters, so in levels containing an arch-vile the KILLS percentage displayed at the end may exceed 100%. Arch-viles are the fastest monsters in the game, almost 50% quicker than a cyberdemon or a charging lost soul, and meeting two or more of them at once without any cover will likely result in death for most players. They are also the most resistant monster to pain, which makes canceling their attacks difficult; a point-blank shot with the super shotgun only disrupts their spell 55% of the time. Arch-viles can be hurt by the blast damage of their own flame attack, so it is possible for an attacking arch-vile to hurt itself or any arch-vile close to its target. However, monsters (including other arch-viles) damaged by an arch-vile's attack will never retaliate because there is an exception in the source code that prevents other monsters from targeting them. This does not stop arch-viles themselves from targeting and damaging other monsters, though. Arch-viles are easy to distract because of their lack of targeting threshold; which means they will always switch target when hit. When facing Arch-viles, it is strongly recommended that players should use the most powerful weapons at their disposal against them -- the BFG 9000 will kill them in one hit most of the time, while the Plasma rifle will usually suppress them from using their attack due to its high rate of fire. The Rocket launcher is also useful at dispatching them, although the player runs a risk of being counterattacked if there are more than one of them at a time. The super shotgun also works fairly well if there is proper cover for the player to hide behind. There are some interesting engine quirks associated with the arch-vile's attack and abilities, such as their assisting players with jumps and creating non-clipping ghost monsters. Inspiration and development The idea and name for the arch-vile came from Sandy Petersen.http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/december03/doom/romero/index2.shtml Bobby Prince said: "The Archvile is an evil healer. Anyone getting in his way is blasted with fire and disintegrated. This includes other demons. But, after he has wrought his destruction, he then goes around and reanimates all of the demons. Because of this interesting dual personality, I decided to give him a very evil laugh as an active sound. For his death sound, I recorded a young girl saying 'why,' pitch shifted it down and mixed it with other sounds. The Archvile just doesn't understand why anyone would want to kill him as he sees himself as only doing good for his fellow demon." http://web.archive.org/web/19980521022218/http://bpmusic.com/pdf/tricks.pdf Notes * The arch-vile is based on a model which is currently displayed in the id Software building. * The arch-vile's name is most likely based on the prefix arch- (meaning ruler or supreme) + the word vile (meaning bad or disgusting) * A lifesize cardboard cutout of the arch-vile produced by id Software exists. Photos of it are found here and here. * MAP11 of The Plutonia Experiment, Hunted, is a maze where arch-viles are the only enemies. The same is true for MAP11 of Plutonia 2 (The sequel to The Plutonia Experiment), Arch-Violence. * The arch-vile's attack inflicts a base 20 points of damage, plus up to 70 additional points of blast damage. The blast damage against immobile targets is often around 63 or 67 points, as the center of the attack is not normally placed at the center of the target. * Considering that the player only needs cover at the moment of blast, he can continuously fire at an arch-vile, using the moment of blast to reload his super-shotgun. After the blast, the demon is still finishing its spell so it's a good time for a shot. The long spell of the demon usually gives the player enough time for two shots. But the player better be strafing toward a cover while making his second shot. The arch-vile in MAP03: Power Control (TNT: Evilution) provides a perfect situation to practice this. * The cyberdemon and the spider mastermind are immune to blast damage, so it takes an arch-vile much longer to kill one of these enemies than one might expect. * In a ZDoom-based source port, if a player "Doomguy" is killed by an arch-vile (monster is credited with delivering the blow that reduces player's health to 0%), an obituary message is displayed at the top of the screen: "Doomguy was incinerated by an arch-vile." Data |- | |} |valign=top| |} |valign=top| |} |} #Assumes that the victim never takes blast damage from an attack on a different target. #Cannot be targeted because arch-viles attack other monsters only in retaliation, but may be accidentally hurt by blast damage. #Arch-viles can never be arch-vile targets, but may suffer accidental blast damage. Appearance statistics In the Doom games, the arch-vile is first encountered on these levels: The IWADs contain the following numbers of arch-viles per skill level: Doom RPG In Doom RPG, the arch-vile appears as a class of monster. There are three variations, identified by color: * Infernis (blue) * Archvile sic (gold) * Apollyon (red) The arch-vile class of monsters are particularly susceptible to axe attacks and also appear to share a similar weakness to the fire extinguisher that lost soul-class monsters do, much the same as in the novelisation of Hell on Earth. They also possess the ability to revive dead monsters, though this will fail if the player is standing on its target's corpse at the time. Something that should be noted is that when attacking, no matter if the arch-vile is an Infernis or Apollyon or just plain arch-vile, it always uses the unmodified costume of the regular arch-vile raising its arms and catching fire. See also *Arch-vile attack targets not preserved in saved games *Arch-vile jump *Ghost monster *Models *Monsters open locked doors External links *Arch-vile sketch by Adrian Carmack